From Kindergarten Curiosity to Stanford: Sophia Lande & Professor Galapagos

Ms. Crosby is no ordinary educator, and it may be safe to assume that not a single child at Avenues knows her real name. But ask any student about Professor Galapagos, and their eyes are sure to light up. A fixture since Avenues’ founding year in 2012, Ms. Crosby has donned a colorful thinking cap and assumed a cheery moniker to wow students with a teaching style that can only be described as magical. A trained artist, Ms. Crosby captivates our youngest students when they’re at their most curious and gives them an unfiltered, age-appropriate view of the complex, yet beautiful world around them. Students explore a range of topics—including leaves, seeds, woodland animals, weather, and human anatomy—through tactile manipulatives and exquisitely hand-drawn images.

For Sophia, her experience in Profe Galapagos’s kindergarten class was life-altering, introducing her to a world of questions about the natural world that she has dedicated her life to answering. She shares that the support, curiosity, and excitement of all her science teachers feel uniquely Avenues, and Sophia is tremendously grateful for such an enriching educational experience that stretches unsparingly from early childhood through high school. 

Now in her sophomore year studying ecology, evolution and the environment, she can draw a throughline directly from her time in the kindergarten science lab to the New York City traffic medians where she studies ant biodiversity, to agricultural sites in Costa Rica sampling bee and plant communities, and to the steps of Capitol Hill, where she advocated for environmental agencies through Heirs To Our Ocean, which empowers young women with the skills needed to shape a more just and sustainable future for our oceans, climate and communities. 

Few students have such a clear sense of purpose from a young age, and fewer carry it through across the arc of their educational journey. Watch below for a delightful reunion of two women in science as they look back on the factors that shaped them, the teachers that moved them, and though at very different junctures, the enduring curiosity and love of questioning that has sustained them.